WHERE WE ARE ON APRIL 17, 2013: Still need $14,602.33 to meet $170,050 yearly goal by April 15, 2014 ($1,216 per month - 12 months from April 1, 2012 - April 1, 2013)

Savings Goals:
Hubby's paychecks $2,478 X 26 wks = $64,428
My savings $1,500 mo. X 12 = $18,000
By March 1, 2014 hubby and I should meet our savings goal of $175,050 and have $50,097 in extra savings (this will give us an emergency fund of $80,097). Next year we hope to convert the remaining $100K of the real estate IRA into a roth and will need about $45K to do that. We will easily be able to meet that goal during 2014!

WHO ARE WE (money wise)?
I am a wife and mother of two grown sons. I own a business & my husband has a good job and we have done some things right (pd. off mortgage, pretty good 401Ks, more than $100,000 in savings, 9 mostly paid off rental houses (10 units). Previously we used a VISA card but now we are only using our debit card.

Most people would say we are in great shape which we are, however, I also have a tendency to overspend money at times (sometimes I worry I have a spending problem).

I want to learn to appreciate what I have and stop frittering money away. With me it is usually either wild overspending or total frugality. I want to learn to live a more balanced financial life, in the middle.

SPENDING/SAVINGS GOALS:
* Continue to stay off EBAY!!! DONE
* Write down all expenditures DONE
* Continue to use the debit card, not the charge card GOT RID OF CHARGE CARD! DONE
* FIND OUT WHAT WE NEED TO LIVE EACH MONTH! Develop a spending plan. DONE
* Continue to save my DH�s
paychecks and live on mine
DONE
INVESTMENT GOALS:
* Gather all figures for 401K,
IRAs, banks accounts DONE
* Create a Net Worth Statement DONE
* Use real estate (rentals) to produce income of $7,000 a month in income tax free

GOAL: Turn the rental account into a ROTH in 2013 so all rental income will be tax free. This is a BIG savings goal for us! We need $120-$160K to pay the taxes on this 400K account. (we have have to convert 280K of the account this year and 100K next year so we will still have some emergency fund money left)

INVESTMENT GOALS: Get our 401K invested in safe mututal funds
FEB - Created a plan and are dollar cost averaging to get back in over the next six months.

Archive for March, 2013

I am interested in your thoughts on the high price of gift giving and/or how much you budget for gifts.

It's funny, but I never really realized how much certain things cost until we started this spending plan two months ago. For instance, I always thought the gift category in our budget would be rather small.

Boy, was I ever wrong!! Although in my "fantasy" spending plan, not including Christmas, we would spend about $1,200 a year on gifts or $100 a month, for the past two months we have spent a WHOPPING $483.28!!

Admittedly, since my youngest son is getting married, we had lots of gift expenses, but we have a MAJOR family bday month coming in April w lots of bdays...mine, hubby's, son's.

We will try to stay at $100 for son's gift and this year we will LIMIT our spousal gifts to $100 each.

In my previous financial haze period, GIFTS as a spending category was never really even on my radar screen. I now have learned two things about them:

1) Gifts cost much more than you think.
2) Buying gifts for others IS an investment in relationships so maybe it IS a worthwhile investment...much more so than buying myself yet another handbag.

ALSO, it seems there is ALWAYS an event which comes up and takes more money than you think. For example, at the end of March I am flying to Nashville to help my older son move to KC which is closer to home. To do that I will have more expenses than in my standard budget...already paid for flight, but hotel room, meals out during the move, new comforter I plan to buy for son's new place. There seems always to be a reason to spend money.

Once good thing, though. I now realize that these other things take so much money that maybe I don't need to SPEND my clothing allowance. Maybe there are better uses I have for that money right now. In fact, I have spent nothing on clothing in two months due to these other expenditures.

Gifts, who knew?

Do you all out there find gifts to be a pricey area? About how much do you spend? And, do you have any ways to keep it more reasonable or do you just accept it?

We started following our spending plan around January 15. I am pleased to report that it is working beautifully! I was the real spending problem in our household as we had lots of disposable income and I was pretty good at disposing of it!

Tracking our spending in Mint and writing everything down has been a Godsend and has really transformed how I view and use money in the following ways:

1)We stopped using our charge card and switched to the debit card so I am forced to live within our income (also, no more $10-$12K monthly VISA bills to pay off!).

2)I set up a budget and know exactly what we have to live on each month.

3) I KNOW what it takes us to live each month - something I had no idea of before.

4) I now realize that all spending has tradeoffs. If you purchase clothes for yourself, you may have to cut down on entertainment, groceries, etc. For instance, this month we have overspent on gifts and instead of just doing it I had to pull funds from other areas. I pulled some money from the gas budget, for instance, as we won't need as much as I had budgeted for in that area.

My new financial learning is going great! Also, I watched Suzi Orman the other night and she gave 3 great tips:

1) Before you make a purchase, ask yourself if you NEED or WANT it. If you don't NEED it, don't buy it.

2) Live within your NEEDS, not your income. (if you can afford a 3000 sq ft house but only NEED a 2000 sq ft house, buy the 2000).

3) Learn to get as much JOY out of saving money as spending it. For the first time in my life, I am getting lots of joy from saving, where before going shopping was how I filled the emotional void.